Generally in the field of a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material (the following is named the light-sensitive material), it is well known to incorporate a dye in the photographic layer of the light-sensitive material in order to absorb the light of specific wave length or for the purpose of preventing antihalation, anti- irradiation or adjustment of light-sensitivity of the light-sensitive emulsion. Thus, a hydrophilic, colloidal layer has been conventionally colored with the above-mentioned dye. Among constitution layers of the above-mentioned light-sensitive material, the filter layer is usually located above the light-sensitive emulsion layer or between said emulsion layer and another emulsion layer and the role of the filter layer is to change the incident light which reaches the emulsion layer into a preferable spectral composition. The antihalation layer is provided in order to improve the sharpness of the image and it is usually provided at the back side of the support or between the light-sensitive emulsion layers.
This layer absorbs reflected light from the boundary surface between the emulsion layer and the support or from the rear surface of the support.
Moreover, the light-sensitive emulsion layer is further colored using a dye, whereby absorb harmful reflection or scattering light from the silver halide grain and improve sharpness of the image by preventing irradiation.
The dye used for such objects should satisfy a following various conditions. That is, the dye has an excellent absorption spectrum characteristic according to the utilization object, and is bleached completely in photographic processing, and the dye is easily dissolved away from the light-sensitive material in photographic processing. (d) After processing the stain with the dye will not be caused. The light-sensitive emulsion is not negatively affected about the fog and the desensitization, etc. Furthermore, the dye does not diffuse from the colored layer to another layer, and aging stability is excellent in aqueous solution or in the light-sensitive material and discoloration is not caused. The dyestuff should satisfy the above-mentioned various requirements.
To date, numerous investigations have been done in order to develop dyes which satisfy various requirements mentioned above. For example, the benzylidene dyes are proposed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,540,887, 3,544,325 and 3,560,214; Japanese Patent Publication No. 10578/1956, and Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 3623/1976, the oxonol dyes are proposed in British Patent No. 500,385 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 22069/1964; the merocyanine dyes are proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,493,747; and stryl dyes are proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,845,404.
Some of these conventional dyes relatively little affect emulsion performance, and a certain dye has the performances such as easily the bleaching, dissolving out, and discoloring during processing. However, these dyes were insufficient as to diffusion resistance. That is, when specific layer of two or more emulsion layers are selectively colored and use as filter layer or antihalation layer, diffusion to another layer is remarkable and the effect of the light absorption falls, and further undesirable spectral action is caused on the other layer.
Thus, as a means of selectively dying a particular hydrophilic colloid layer, there have been proposed the use of a mordant to immobilize the dye and the use of a non-diffusible dye. However, when the mordant is used, coating property is often poor, and the inhibition of the dye diffusion between the photographic layers is not sufficient. Moreover, the dissolving out of the dye during processing and bleaching effect are not sufficient. Further processing bath of high pH is required and, in addition, compatibility to a rapid processing is not sufficient.
Various researches relating to the method of using non-diffusible dyes have been done. Among them, the silver salt of the oxonol dye having a thio barbituric acid parent nucleus with a particular structure is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,077,049, 2,266,441 and 3,471,293.
Although, these known silver salts of dyes have a diffusion resistance in short storagelife, bleaching and dissolving out characteristics during process are not sufficient, and these dyes diffuse in long storage and further, these dyes have adverse effects on the photographic properties of the light-sensitive silver halide emulsion.
Thus, there is no dye meeting these requirements, there is strong demand for the development of such a dye.